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6 Benefits of Pullups

There are lots of benefits of pullups. I could literally go on about the importance of this exercise all day, but today we’re going to discuss the top 6 benefits and I’m also going to give you guys a few tips.

Convenience

Pullups are one of the most convenient exercises around. You can do this exercise pretty much anywhere. All you need is a bar and your body. When I first started working out I took a metal pole that I found in the garbage and hung it my laundry room. Voila! I now have a sophisticated piece of modern muscle building exercise equipment .

Fundamental Compound Upper-body Exercise

I’ve stressed the importance of compound exercises in the past. Compound exercises are important for a number of reason, such as targeting several muscle groups and releasing a large amount of growth hormone.

I’ve also talked about squats and what a great lower-body muscle building exercise they are. Well, pullups are like squats for your upper body. There is no other excise that will cause upper body growth quite like pullups will. Specifically, pullups do a great job of targeting the back and biceps.

If you want that V-tapered physique pullups are a must. They will make your back wide. Combine a wide back and shoulders with a slim waste and you’ve got the V-taper.

Can Easily Increase Intensity

Progressively increasing the intensity of your workouts is one of the secret ingredients to the magic muscle building recipe. Some exercises require your to get fancy with your workouts in order to increase the intensity, but not pullups. You can boost the intensity of your back workout simply by strapping a weight plate to your waist or hanging a kettlebell from your foot while you perform your pullups.

Many Variations

One of the best benefits of pullups is that there are many different variations of the pullup. The best thing is that one version doesn’t require any additional equipment than another variation. All you’ve got to do is switch your hand placement around.

My favorite variation is the regular old wide, overhand pullup. This is the best variation for getting your lats to grow. Some other good variations are close grip pullups , and reverse grip pullups (also known as chinups). I find that all of these variations do a great job of targeting my back, but reverse grip pullups (chinups) place more emphasis on the biceps. I saw a lot of progress in my bicep development once I started doing chin ups.

Grip Strength

If you’re a serious bodybuilder, than having good grip strength is a must. Fortunately, hanging from a bar and supporting and lifting your body weight does a great job

Fat Loss

It’s not quite like running on a treadmill or jumping rope, but pullups will get your heart rate up and really kick your butt. If you want to boost the fat loss capabilities of doing pullups you could decrease the time in between sets and also super set your pullups with another exercise.

That’s it. Those are my top 6 benefits of pullups. Below you can find a list of pullups tips that should help you out in your quest to build a bigger upper body and do more pullups.

Pullups Tips:

1. Pullups are superior to pull downs – Go to the gym any day of the week and I guarantee your chances of finding a free pull up bar is much higher than finding a free pull-down machine. People are lazy these days, they would rather do what’s easy and comfortable than what’s hard, but more beneficial. Pull downs are O.K. but they should be added to supplement your pull ups, not replace them

2. Assisted pull ups are superior to pull downs – Get out of your comfort zone. Even if you can’t do a pullup, try ditching the pull-down machine for the assisted pullup machine. It’s not as embarrassing as you think. Each week you’ll make a little bit of progress and before you know it, you won’t have to use the assisted pull up machine. You’ll be able to do a real pullup.

3. Even if you can only do 1 or 2 pullups, do it – Practice makes perfect. If you can only do 1 or 2 pullups, but decide never to do them, how will you ever reach 10 pullups? Stop making excuses and start doing pull ups. When I could only do 1 or 2 pullups I would perform 3-4 sets of assisted pull ups, and then do a couple of sets of body weight pullups,, even though I could only do 1 or 2.